1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to brake system of either the in-line type roller skates or the classic adjacent-wheel type, which allows the rider to effectively apply at will two-feet braking without any postural change at that time time the brake was applied by arcuating the skater's feet.
It is paramount for roller skates to safely and effectively brake to stop as it is to roll smooth and swift. However, to date the publicly adapted brake system commercially popular are the ideas that were conceived in the late 40's and late 50's, such as the brake means mounted to front end of the roller skates or simply called as the Toe-Stop and for the in-line skate is the rear mounted brake means sometimes called as the Heel-Pad.
There are quite a number of patents describing otherways of braking, but the fact of the matter is that the absolute judge in the field of success is the general public itself that celebrates the idea's undisfutable commercial adoption.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Indeed the braking mechanism of a roller skate is very important to control safely skating operation. The art has documented various braking mechanism, One advocate in the roller skates brake arts is the U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,387 by Jeff M. Colla entitled Roller Skate Brake Assembly Having Toe Actuator Within the Boot. His idea is advocating the Toe to actuate an actuator that is in operative relation with a brake pad to engaged directly against the wheel to effect braking. The biggest drawback of Mr. Colla's idea is the fact that the Toe itself simply and beyond any reasonable doubt has "NO" enough power to effectively brake the gross weight of the skater under accelerated or even a deccelerated momentum. On the first place, He is claiming a brake actuator means and not a force amplifying brake means, but even if he did!, the Toe has simply no enough force even when amplified by a brake force amplifying means to practically cause a controllable and effective braking. This is the prime-reason why the skate Manufacturers did not venture with Mr. Colla's idea inspite of the fact that it was available since 1991.
In 1958, Levin under U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,645 advocated a spring and nut mounted on the rear axis of the skate with which one could adjust pressure and in effect the drag on the rear wheel bearings.
In 1973 Roddy patented U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,244 that produced the same result as that of Levin by putting a drum brake directly on the wheel. In 1975, U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,203 by Kukulowicsz presented a single plate that bears on two adjacent tandem wheels. U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,028 introduced a brake system where a wheel was attached to the rear of the skate at a level slightly above that of the usual wheel, in such a way that its rolling surface touches the ground when the skate is tilted back.
Further, in 1971 under U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,595 advocated a method of attaching a toe stop to an inexpensive street skate while U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,759 by Neitz introduced an addition of a pin to the toe stop to prevent rotation to the pad.
In 1981 U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,547 by Dungan presented hydraulic type for small vehicles; by 1990 Gates under U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,075 advocated similar but differentiating way.
Still further, Wagers in 1959 under U.S. Pat. No. 2,872,201 introduced a system by attaching the pad to the structure of the skate. Then in 1963 under U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,119 advocated the heel of the shoe itself as part of the main plate of the skate. But still further, more refinements were introduced in 1991 by Olson under U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,707 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,736 using plastic webs and wear indicator. All previous patents to date excepting those that uses either the Toe or Heel brake system in short, failed to gain confidence to the world skates manufacturers and therefore all lost its commercial goals.
The Toe or Heel Skate brake system has still so much need for improvement, because even with its adaption by the general public, they are the primary causes of roller skating accidents. Their disadvantages according to those who are skilled in the art varies. For example, they do not allow intermittent application of brake. In the Toe brake system, the weight of the skater that is extended therefore the braking force induced is limited. Further, in the Toe brake system, the skater has to slant his body slightly forward to move the center of gravity to the front portion of his body and such awkward body position could easily render the skater unbalanced.
In the Heel system skate brake, as the skater pushes down on the heel of the skater, the skaters weight tends to be supported primarily on the freely rolling wheel, and to bring the brake pad on the heel portion to bear, the skater must raise the Toe portion of the skate into the air while keeping the heel pad engaged on the rolled surface. It is at this necessary motional transition of the skaters balance at this precise moment, that the skater could totally lost its balance and falls down.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a roller skate that the skater can apply two feet braking at will without any positional change at the precise point when the braking effort is made and therefore able to maintain balance and very effective controllable braking the fact that such braking effort could now be made with the skater's two feet simultaneously.
It is another object of the present invention to include a force amplifying brake means inorder to produce a safety margin of braking force to produced an effective but controllable braking.
It is finally an object of the present invention to include a brake system that can be intermittently and incrimentally operated at will as the skating condition requires.